Imdb Ranking 6.7
Best friends Jimmy and Rose live near Dublin in Bray on the sea shore. They make up stories about the people they see, and when something sounds good they write it down. Jimmy is a good musician and plays sometimes with his father, who drinks and mourns his departed wife.
When a Renee Baker (Beverly D'Angelo), a blonde beauty suddenly appears, they follow and try to guess what drove her to Brey. Did she kill her husband? Is she English, French? Renee sees them and then starts following her stalkers but they hurry away. The next day they again look on as Renee goes in to the water and then talk to her when she comes out. Renee tells Jim that she is American.
Jimmy becomes infatuated with Renee and Rose begins to feel uncomfortable. They follow Renee around and see her picture on a poster at a playhouse. She is an actress. Jimmy goes to see her perform the Marlene Dietrich role in the play Destry Rides Again and brings flowers backstage.
James goes with Renee to a party after the performance. Renee was in Los Angeles before she came to Dublin. At the pub, Renee is called upon, and gets up and sings a song and Jimmy gets up and plays the piano.
At the next performance Jimmy's father is there too, and then Jimmy sees his father talking to Renee. When he gets home Jimmy's father tells him not to go see Renee again and they end up hitting each other.
Jimmy and Rose go to church and pray for a miracle, so that Jimmy will have luck with Renee. Jimmy's father then goes and talks to Renee again and we find out Jimmy's mother is not dead. His mother is Renee but Jimmy doesn't know it yet.
Jimmy confronts Renee again after work but Renee won't let her in to his apartment. Jimmy takes Rose to see Destry. He sees his father again talking to Renee. His father does not want Renee to tell Jimmy the truth. Jimmy and Rose then go in to Renee's dressing room. Renee tells Jimmy that on Sunday she will come see him play. Jimmy is playing with his father's band.
She walks in, sees Jimmy's father and leaves. Jimmy is angry at his father and he leaves too. Renee goes back to Jimmy's house with him. Jimmy tells Renee that he is in love with her, and Renee tells him he can't talk to her like that. Jimmy gets angry and tells her to leave. When she leaves he looks through her bag and sees a picture of her with his father. Jimmy's father comes home and Jimmy says he knew as soon as he saw her but he didn't know he knew. Jimmy tells his father he needed him to tell him the truth.
When Renee comes to see Jimmy, he says he doesn't want to talk to her. She follows him and they finally talk about what happened.
Another interesting story from Neil Jordan. Not quite the shocker that The Crying Game was, but still a very interesting movie.
